Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Olala Noodles (一碗麵) - ♕♕♕♕

Also recommended by the 2010 Michelin Guide, this Hong Kong slash Shanghainese noodles shop is designed to serve the niche market or its Japanese customers rushing in for their Tan Tan Noodles during lunch hours. Here, they sell on average the most expensive noodles in Hong Kong except say at Sevva. The best noodle bowls cost a mind boggling $150 each, whereas the more affordable ones start from $80, still not cheap by local standards… Relative to other HK noodle joints or even MIST Ramen, this sounds nothing short of ridiculous, but come to think of it why can most Italian Pasta Dishes be charged at $200-300 easily but not our Hong Kong noodle bowls? There is even one shop out there called Da Domenico which charges $528 for a single plate of Linguine con Gamberi…

Barley Tea -for cutting down the grease..

Menu of its Noodles Dishes..

香葱三蝦麵 -The $150 price tag comes from the 3 types of prawns used to cook this. French Crevette Rose or Sweet Prawns are pulverised before being boiled as the sweet broth, which is slightly different from what magazines have published. Smaller prawns and Dried prawns are fried with Scallion to give it that extra flavour and aroma. The Soup base to me was very sweet, but too diluted in concentration. Staff explained that this wasn’t the case before a few years back, but Olala boss changed the recipe slightly. I wouldn’t mind if it had less water and is more concentrated as a broth ~ 7.5/10

Prawns and Dried Prawns were not overly tasty, perhaps they could use better fresh peeled prawns @ $150. The French Pink Prawns/Sweet Shrimps aren’t visible nor edible, they’ve already become part of the broth.

紅燒牛肉麵 -Also at $150 per bowl, the positive bit about this noodles is that the beef broth is thick and well flavoured, cooked in a Shanghainese/Taiwanese type of way. The downfall being that the braised Beef Rib pieces were slightly hard and stringy, rather than tough. Needs an improvement in cooking formulae ~ 7/10

Noodles this time slightly undercooked..

Crème Brulee -I ordered Crème Caramel but they had none left, so they brought me a Crème Brulee from their sister restaurant, on the house. A lovely gesture. Sugar needed more blow torch effort as it still remained mostly granulated. Eggy, but no Vanilla Taste at all ~ 6/10

Price: $170 Per PersonDinner Score: ★★★★☆☆*Very Expensive, and unfortunately, still carries much room for improvement here and there. The Prawns broth would taste much deeper in flavours if it was more Concentrated, like its older recipe. Beef pieces could be more fork tender than tense and hard.